[ppml] Policy Proposal 2003-15: IPv4 Allocation Policy for the Africa Portion of the ARIN Region

[Jonathan Lydall]

I was under the under the impression that each policy is "independent"
to each other, it's not like we are voting for a president, where we are
voting for one or the other? Can we not vote yes or no for both
policies? Surely then each policy will either be accepted or rejected by
their own merits or faults?

I acknowledge the frustration of other other list members pushing for
2003-03, however it is evident that a deadlock exists  or did exist and
hence the reason it has been going for a long time. Infact, the reason
Sub-Saharan African's have submitted their own independent policy
proposal is precisely because of this reason.

In regard to upstream providers, it goes without saying that they like
the way things are, the way that smaller ISPs can only change upstream
providers if they are willing to do massive IP address changes to all
their clients. Certainly they would be happy enough if things stayed the
way they are, however, they are certainly not opposing 2003-15, and a
couple of them are even for it, which implies that as a group we stand
together, to do what is best for the end user, and most importantly,
making people who have actually obtained internet at high expense, to
have made solid investment, which will not require time eating tasks
such as IP address renumbering.

While our Telecom is monopolistic, our upstream ISPs are not, and a
company like the one I work for definitely needs the ability to be able
to change upstream ISPs without the need of having to inconvenience
clients of ours who have mail servers or do web/application hosting and
especially DNS hosting. The ISP I work for would also greatly benefit by
plugging into our local up and running INX point, something where an ASN
for BGP would be incredibly useful.

Now, if I was only one of a few ISPs in this position I would understand
that it would shrugged off because it's the little guy whining, but the
majority of ISPs in this country are in a very similar position. We need
the smaller allocation / requirements so that we can meet the needs of
our clients, and provide what is best for them. By making action on our
side easier in the event of a problem, we can serve our clients better
by not interupting them.

The biggest drive is the INX points, with smaller requirements, the
relative number of ISPs connecting to these points will be huge, our INX
point will grow, making a lot more bandwidth available internal to our
country. 2003-15 will act aa highly effective catalyst to growth, and
more importantly, reliabilty of the internet where I live.

"Scale of economy" is the primary phrase here. Yes, while in a place
like North America, there may be a lot more ISPs than in Africa which
could also do with a policy like 2003-15, they may (I say may, because I
cannot truly say what the situation is like there), relatively speaking,
be the little guys. Where I live, by our standards, its not the "little
guy" who has current ARIN policy in their way, it is businesses which
are no longer considered start ups, have gotten over the hurdle of
starting out, and are here to stay.

We submitted this proposal, independently, because we are a united
region, all excited with the recent increase in growth of the internet
in our region, and very excited for the not so distant day when AfriNIC
starts allocating out IP addresses for itself. While we cannot ignore or
forget the rest of our collegues under the ARIN region, our part of the
region is different to them. You cannot ignore the significant number of
increases to mailing list form our region, and we are now hearing th
voice of other members on this list.

Now, I encourage all the recent additions to mailing list (myself
included) from the Sub-saharan region to carry on pushing for this goal
we've set out to achieve, a goal which will benefit all in this region,
to carry on trying to prove the necessity of 2003-15, and to not sway,
as it is important for a lot of us that it gets passed ASAP, without a
delay of an ammendment to the proposal. But more importantly, we must
all realise that we are part of a worldwide community, and we are not
the only ones with problems and hinderances, with our eyes opened more
widely to the problems that other regions are experiencing, it is our
duty to support policies such as 2003-03.

Jonathan Lydall,

Online Digital Solutions.